


Spark?

by ArbuscularMycorrhizal



Category: Critical Role (Web Series), Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Caleb Widogast's Backstory, Case Fic, Everyone is there but mostly its Vimes and Caleb, Gen, Post-Thud, Pre-episode 50, Sort of? - Freeform, Vimes POV, nothing actually gets solved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:35:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27657611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArbuscularMycorrhizal/pseuds/ArbuscularMycorrhizal
Summary: A mishap with the Happy Fun Ball leads the Mighty Nein to the city of Ankh-Morpork where they very quickly become the problem of the Commander of the City Watch.Scattered across the city they must find each other and get home. All while being as unhelpful as possible to the investigation of what the hells is going on conducted by said Samuel Vimes.A very brief crossover.
Comments: 37
Kudos: 68





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place some time before episode 50 of CR so some minor spoilers for some character backstories.
> 
> No strict timelines from either fandom. I'm just throwing characters together because it seems like a fun idea. 
> 
> Knowledge of Critical Role not 100% necessary because this is all going to be from Vimes' point of view.

Magic is, by its very nature, unpredictable. Any attempt to find rules or laws to constrain or explain magic are usually met with a soft chuckle and a firm ‘ **No** ’ from the universe. Magic is just about everywhere and in just about everything. Even the lack of something is in itself magical. The dark is just a lack of light and both are as magical as each other. The limitlessness and infinitely simple complexity of magic makes it impossible for a mind to truly understand. It is important to note that one does not need to understand magic to encounter it. Just the fact that your entire experience of the universe has been through and as a lump of gray fatty matter filled with lightning is pretty magical in itself.

And there's the fact that outside of your lump of gray fatty matter is a bunch of other lumps of gray fatty matter all filled with their own bit of magic and their own ideas on what magic is. That's the thing with people and magic. They will try to interpret it and understand it. Sometimes to reach an understanding of magic but mostly to reach an understanding on life. They will be wrong but they will be wrong in their own special way powered by their own little bit of magical lightning. And those little sparks power billions of little ideas and rules and not rules belonging solely to the individual. This can of course make it difficult to create an understandable idea to communicate.

The way to get around these billions of different interpretations is through the best bit of magic there is. That of course is the magic of belief. 

Not the belief in magic, magic is magical whether or not someone believes in it. But the belief that things happen. That the sun will rise tomorrow and the hearts will beat regardless of if you ask them to. That those things can be stories and that they happen all the time. They are an intrinsic part of any culture because any culture that got around to calling itself a culture needed stories to get there. 

Magic inhabits stories just as surely as you inhabit your own skin. 

And as the makers of stories we have just a little bit of control over the magic that makes them which means, for the right story, magic can be convinced to be convenient.

Sam Vimes stared at a brick. If a brick had fingernails this one would be hanging on for dear life. He wasn’t sure if teetering was the right descriptor or perhaps dangling would fit a bit better. Either way gravity was sure to have it’s way with it sooner or later. It’s predicament surely wasn’t helped by the number of watch officers and the crew of builders that were in turn trying to examine a crime scene and keep the building from doing just what the brick was threatening to do. 

A huge and gaping hole yawned in the side of what had been a combination bakery-blacksmith-place-of-residence-for-fourteen-people. Brick and rubble and shattered wood was being moved out and piled and materials for shoring up the structure were being brought in. The repair crew had arrived almost as fast and the Watch. A troll carrying a stout piece of timber disappeared into the building through the yawning hole where an entrance shouldn’t be. They missed the brick by inches but total building collapse was becoming less of an immediate threat. 

Something had finally gotten damaged and Vimes finally had something more that hearsay to go on. He ground his teeth into the shape of something like a grin.

Seven, well now eight explosions of light bright enough to blind and sound loud enough to rattle windows all over the city. His city. With no warning and seemingly no pattern. Random times of the day in locations of varying levels of importance. From back alleys that had seen varing degrees of murder to big fancy houses where someone had to spend too much time making the grounds outside to fit the tastes of big fancy people who hated the look of trees. The only thing they had in common was that they were inconvenient for anyone trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Back alleys that no one ever used and big fancy houses where no one was home. A they left behind was some superficial scuff marks and too many complaints from the public.

They were big and bright and attention grabbing explosions so Vimes was required to do something about them. Nothing had actually been blown up but people noticed big and bright and worried which made it Vimes’ job to figure it out. 

He had received another missive from Vetinari just this morning (A missive was a lot like a regular message except someone more important that you wrote it, usually when they were very cross). He had _inquired_ about whether or not Vimes had made any damn progress on the city wide _incidents_ that were paving the road towards a city wide _panic_. Vetinari hadn’t put it exactly like that, he had been a lot more polite and a lot more pointed, but Vimes could feel the italics crawling up his neck.

Had Vimes made any progress when he had received the missive? No. 

But he was making progress now and he hadn’t replied yet so he could say as such and it all worked out. 

Progress, that's what was happening.The others had just been reports of some lights and some noise, maybe a spooked horse. This time the thing had come out of the explosion and struck an actual officer of the City Watch. It had been a troll officer so the collision had sent the object one way, through the window on one side of the street, and the officer through the bakery-blacksmith-place-of-residence-for-fourteen-people on the other side of the street.

This time had been different and Vimes fully planned to make something of it. This time they had already been on the scene on account of one of the officers being a part of the scene itself and had been able to set up other officers who hadn’t become intimately familiar with a building site fairly quickly. They hadn’t set up a perimeter. You didn’t catch anyone with a perimeter just like you didn’t catch fish with a wall. For this you needed a net. You needed the fish to think that there was water up ahead.

He had already had one discrete pair of officers retrieve the _thing_ , whatever it was, from where it had lodged in the back wall plaster of the Secondhand Books, Thirdhand Clothes, and Fourthhand Everything Else Shop who’s window it had smashed and it was being escorted discreetly back to Pseudopolis Yard. Not that Lance-Constable Bluejohn was himself discreet, but everything besides himself by comparison became discreet. Nobody noticed anything specific about Lance-Constable Bluejohn because between the time you started noticing the troll and the time you finished noticing the troll you had either ran into a pole or missed your turn. You didn’t have time to think ‘hmmm that troll has something in their hand’ when you are too busy rubbing your forehead and realizing you’re going to be late. Besides, if a troll is carrying something you don’t point it out in case the troll very quickly decides to stop carrying it in your direction. 

Vimes wasn’t concerned that the thing wouldn’t make it back to the Watch House. He was more concerned about the thing itself. From the brief glance he had gotten of it, it looked like some overly complicated cannon ball. Shiny metal with a bunch of squiggles all over it but otherwise unassuming. There was something about it though that set the hairs on the back of Vimes’ neck he usually set aside for magical nonsense on end. 

Magic. 

His annoyed huff was lost to the hubbub of the street. Of course it had to be magic. He had been hoping for some bloke with an excess of dynamite and time on his hands or perhaps a particularly potent new type of firework from the Alchemist’s guild . But no, the universe had heard him and given him exactly what he didn’t want. Despite whatever the wizards over at the university said, magic didn’t follow rules and magic definitely didn’t follow laws; which made it difficult when you were trying to arrest it. He took a deep breath, at the moment it didn’t matter, or it did matter but there were more pressing things to deal with. So Vimes set his thoughts on magic aside where they waited patiently but definitely waited. The ball was on its way back to the station, the building crews were cleaning up the damage, and Vimes was watching. Not directly because people noticed that, not pointedly because that made nervous people more nervous, but definitely watching. He pushed a bored look back on his face and stared at the rubble. Fish didn’t tend to struggle unless they knew they were caught.

The brick wobbled and fell and Vimes saw what he had been looking for out of the corner of his eye. 

The citizens of Ankh-Morpork had the pastime of standing around and watching whatever had the slightest potential of being interesting down to an art. This crowd had clearly heard the noise of property destruction and had rushed to the scene just in case a mob was required. Now that it was clear that a mob was not required they would hang around and chatter and maybe buy sausages if someone was selling them. Hoping for something exciting to happen again on the basis that it had happened once and there was a chance that lightning might strike the same place twice.

What they wouldn’t do is skulk around the edges of the crowd on the quiet side of the street and not pay attention to any of the interesting action. 

The man was tall, or would have been if he was standing up straighter, scruffy, and had an air about him that Vimes had no trouble placing as suspicious. The weather was on the warmer side of mild and yet the man was holding on to a dirty coat like he was afraid he’d be stuck in a blizzard any minute. Most of all though, he looked worried.

He had been still for too long. That’s what had caught Vimes’ attention. Everyone else was shifting and jostling and talking with whoever was next to them about what had or hadn’t happened. But not the man, he was doing the same thing Vimes was. Watching. Looking for something. Unfortunately for the man Vimes had found what he was looking for first.

He stopped staring at where the brick had been and made eye contact with Sergeant Angua, turning slightly so his back was too the man. Angua had been doing a very good job of looking like she wasn’t really watching anyone on account of being incredibly bored herself. She looked back at Vimes and he could see the sharpness slide into her eyes as she shrugged off the blanket of disinterest. She glanced over his shoulder.

“Across the street. Human man, red hair, brown coat. Got him? Good stop looking. Take two officers round the back of that alley and be ready. I’ll wait two minutes and head towards him. Lets see if he’ll startle.”

Most innocent people didn’t run from police officers. They’d mutter and complain and usually find somewhere else to look besides the face of said police officers but they didn’t run. Of course sometimes it could be difficult to find someone who was actually totally innocent in this city but most of the time everyday petty crime could be swept into the category of ‘not important enough to actually run for’.

Vimes watched Angua slip away followed by two officers who managed a barely decent sort of slunk. That’s what being a symbol of the peace did to you. People noticed symbols and now people noticed the Watch and now Vimes was in charge of people who didn’t know how to be not there.

Vimes turned and looked into eyes that were partially blue but mostly panic. Damn, he hadn’t meant to do that but the man had been looking straight at him and the obvious attention had caught Vimes eye before he could tell it to stay casual. But no, the man had looked at Vimes and Vimes had looked back. Sharp met sharp and there was no hiding that. The rabbit knows the look of the dog.

The man startled.

He began shoving and slipping through the crowd towards the apparent safety of the alley. ‘At least that part of the plan was going right’ Vimes thought as he began to follow. He pushed through the crowd and the crowd pushed back on principle, but a half hearted principle because it was easy to see on his face that if the crowd wanted trouble Sam Vimes was willing to give it. He was seven explosions past being pleasant to onlookers and his first lead that was even in the vicinity of tangible was slipping away around the corner of the alley. He wished he could have given the sergeant more time but it would have to do. 

He pushed past the last few stragglers of the crowd and burst into the emptiness of the alley. He had expected the figure of the man to be halfway down the narrow alleyway by now at least instead he was only 30 feet away, frantically working at the locked back door of the Nth-hand Just About Everything Shop. He had his back to Vimes, looking down towards the other end of the alley where the two silhouettes of the watchmen were approaching. There was no sign of Angua. Good. If something had happened to stop her from getting here in time it would have happened to the other two first and there were plenty of discarded boxes and piles of rubbish for her to be hiding behind. 

Vimes’ boot knocked against an empty bottle and the man whipped around, turning so he could press his back into the still locked door. His eyes were impossibly wide. Words Vimes couldn’t quite make out were falling out of the man’s mouth and a grubby bandaged hand reached into a pocket. 

The thought of _magic_ resurfaced Vimes mind like a shark fin and he tensed. 

Needlessly it turned out, because Angua, on the other side of the man had very quickly gone from being a tightly wound spring barely noticeable in the shadow to being a lot of teeth and fur very noticeable in the light. She was on the man in a flash, paw pinning one wrist to the cobbles and her jaws around the other. Something small and gray and straight clattered to the ground and nobody moved. 

Vimes could see the man’s chest heaving in short sharp bursts rightfully panicked at the sudden close proximity of a wolf.

“This is the City Watch. You are being brought in under suspicion of disturbing the peace,” he said. 

The words would have felt a lot better if he had anything beyond a suspicion and the law book vagueness of ‘disturbing the peace’. It was something, which was better than nothing, but not good enough. Eight explosions and what did they have to go on? One shifty looking man, who was admittedly very shifty. But for all they knew they had just caught a conveniently unlucky pickpocket. A very dense pickpocket. Reaching into one’s pockets while surrounded was something done by someone very desperate or very stupid.

The man hadn’t moved yet so he wasn’t that stupid. He just stared up past the werewolf into the off grey of the sky, breath going from the rapid panicked rhythm to something still definitely panicked but under the thinnest veils of control. It was hard to tell if he was scheming up something or so deep into his panic that his brain had taken a temporary vacation. Some people could do both simultaneously.

The blank look stayed firmly in place even as the other two officers arrived and gingerly placed handcuffs on bandaged wrists still held by wolf paw and jaw. Only when the man was properly secured did Angua pull back. Stiff legged and hackles raised. She didn’t seem to trust the man to stay properly secured. Or she was playing it up a bit to make sure he was too scared to run. 

The latter didn’t seem very likely. As the two officers pulled him to his feet, the man seemed to have difficulty finding them. He swayed between them, gaze slipping from the sky down to the cobbles where it stayed. A struggle would have felt better but instead the man said nothing and let himself be led out of the alley. 

Another shark fin Vimes couldn’t quite make out surfaced and began to circle. 

Vimes watched as they loaded the man into the wagon they had parked a street over from the disturbance. To make sure there wasn’t any funny business but mostly to let the Sergeant get her uniform back on. 

He didn’t like it when things were too easy because it meant you had to go along with them. He couldn’t tell the man to fight, to shout, to complain, to do anything but go too quietly. He just had to wait and watch. Was the man planning something? Was the Watch going along with the plan? Or did the man just know when he was caught?

By the time Angua had emerged, surreptitiously adjusting her breast plate, the wagon was rolling down the street back towards the Watch House. She stood with him in silence as they watched it disappear round a bend. 

“He was injured,” she said. Vimes looked over at her, she was still looking down the street. “Nothing life ending but definitely hurt. Bad bruising on his left side and definitely a sprained wrist or shoulder. Maybe his ribs. Definitely abrasions.”

“You can smell bruises?” Vimes didn’t ask if she had anything to do with the sprained wrist.

“I can smell a body trying to heal. He was scared too, has been for a while. The new smells were mixing with the the old.” Angua said. Vimes didn’t say that most people were scared when they were pretty sure they were about to be eaten by a wolf. Old fear though, that was good to know.

“Well, make sure they do a proper intake and we’ll have Igor take a look at him when he gets a chance so the man doesn’t doesn’t keel over before we can get some answers. Anything else? Any connections?” The man had definitely been up to something but if it wasn’t related to the explosions then Vimes would prefer that that something wait.

Angua took a deep breath through her nose and thought for a bit. To Vimes’ relief she nodded slowly.

“Not so much on this last one but there is something. There was dirt on him I don’t recognize. There’s a lot of city dirt too, he must have rolled in the stuff, but under that I can’t recognize it. It was at the other sites too though. And there was something else too,” she said slowly, still thinking over her words. “Like how you know which kid belongs to which mum by the smell of her cooking?” Vimes did not know this but he didn’t say as such. “There’s something familiar between them…” she trailed off, still thinking. 

Vimes tried to nudge her in what he hoped was a helpful direction. “Do you think there are others?”

She narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. “Yes. I think so. I wasn’t sure until I got close to him, but there are definitely others.”

Vimes wasn’t sure how much more complicated that was going to make things. He wasn’t actually sure how complicated things were at the moment. He just knew that things were and they were complicated. He’d figure out the rest as he went along. 

“I want you to go back and make sure they search him properly. He was reaching for something when you brought him down and I don’t think it was anything as convenient as a knife,” he told her. She nodded and started down the road after the wagon. She’d make sure the man would actually get there too, or if he didn’t she’d find him. She stopped as he called out to her. “Send Carrot down to take over here. I’ve got some business to take care of.” 

That business was to prove to his wife that he ate dinner and read a bedtime story to his son but it was important and the sergeant knew that. She gave him a smart salute and continued down the street.

Vimes watched her go and then turned back into the gloom of the alley towards the noise of the crowd. Big bright explosions, magic, and old fear. 

He stooped and picked up the thing that had fallen out of the man’s hand. It didn’t look like much. It didn’t look like anything actually. A small straight piece of metal, iron maybe. No markings or mystic runes. Just a piece of metal that the man had desperately been reaching for when he thought he was in danger. 

He was still turning the iron over in his hand when Carrot arrived. 

“Sorry about the delay sir, there were a few last minute things I had to take care of that couldn’t read the clock,” Carrot said. He wasn’t actually that late but Carrot was one of those people who thought being early meant that you were on time. 

“That’s alright. I reckon we saw all the excitement that was going to happen here,” said Vimes. The crowd hadn’t dispersed but the focus was more on the people selling pies than any civic happenings. He knew that Carrot knew he had plenty of time before six o’clock. “Anything of interest in your last minute things?”

Carrot was already scanning the crowd right where Vimes had left off.

“Not really anything to do with this business. Some stolen items that didn’t match up with the Thieves Guild, complaints about graffiti”. All usual stuff then. Carrot continued. “Oh, and Mr.Stibbons over at the university got attacked according to him.”

“A wizard attacked?!” Vimes managed to keep his voice down so only the closest members of the crowd looked around at him in vague interest. 

“Just a black eye and a fair bit of swelling on the nose.” Visions of magical attacks on the city dissolved under Carrot’s unworried tone. “He’ll sound a bit stuffy for a while but no other harm done.”

Well most of the wizards already sounded stuffy so that wasn’t much of a change. 

“And he reported it to the Watch?” Vimes asked. He thought wizards were too proud for that. They tended to deal with their own problems under the assumption that they were the higher authority regardless of any other authority nearby.

“He said it wasn’t another wizard who punched him so it was most likely our sort of problem.” Carrot said. 

“Did he have a description?” Vimes asked.

“No sir, I believe the first strike broke his glasses and scared the wits out of him.” 

Vimes didn’t wear glasses but he did understand the principles on which they functioned. He was pretty sure not having them on made things blurry, not invisible, which meant the issue would probably be in the lack of wits. That was wizards for you. 

“I sent him back with an escort and let the patrols know to keep a close eye out around the university.” And that would be enough, it wasn’t exactly unusual to want to punch a wizard. Carrot continued. “I can handle things here if you’ve got business to attend to sir.”

It was getting nearer to six o’clock and Carrot could handle things here. 

“Alright, I’ll be back in later but send for me if there's another incident,” Vimes gestured to the damage across the street.

He gave Carrot a nod and left. There were a million thoughts buzzing around his head like a bunch of bees too lost to ask for directions. Where would the next explosion happen? If there would even be another explosion. They had captured someone who was involved, maybe the man had been the mastermind behind all of the bright lights and loud noises. Or maybe he wasn’t but the other’s Angua had smelled were letting him take the fall. Or maybe there would be another incident halfway through dinner. He didn’t know. There were just too many variables that he hadn’t even uncovered yet. He knew there was supposed to be a bigger picture but he hadn’t even got a glimpse of it. One or two explosions was one thing, an accident or someone messing around. Three was somebody up to something and anything above four that something wasn’t any good. They were on number eight and all he had was a man in the cells and a piece of iron in his pocket. 

And the ball thing they had dug out of the plaster.

He’d take a look at it as soon as he got back to the watch house and then he’d talk to the man. He needed answers and before that he needed the right questions. However, Vimes marched up the steps to his front door. Before all of that he had business to attend too. 

Another explosion did not happen during dinner nor did it happen during bedtime stories. By the time eight o’clock rolled around he hadn’t heard any news so he gave Sybil a kiss and sent for himself back to the Watch house.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn’t write out Igor’s lisp because I always have a difficult time reading accents/speech variations and didn’t want to subject anyone else to my attempt at actually writing one. 
> 
> Pretty big spoilers for Caleb's backstory up to episode 49

Vimes stepped through the front door and into Watch House. He didn’t exactly sigh with relief but he did settle a bit. After all these years it was like pulling on a coat you knew fitted you perfectly, even if you didn’t know what was in the pockets. It was it’s own usual brand of clatter and chatter and general busyness. Chaotic in that comfortable way that implied that things were stuck together with momentum rather than glue and would fall apart if they stopped moving and it didn’t intend to stop moving anytime soon. Some of that moving was quite stationary and permanently around the tea urn but feet could be static and things would still be moving. Ideas, conversation, complaints. They all moved, although sometimes sluggishly, from officer to officer. Gossip was part of the very fabric of the Watch.

Vimes ignored it with the knowledge that anything important would probably make its way to him eventually. Gossip tended to filter as it moved upwards and he didn’t want to have to sift through the grit that accumulated in the many tedious hours of many tedious shifts. The mundane stuff at least had trouble climbing ranks.

He made his way over to the duty desk where Constable Haddock was attempting to complete paperwork through a series of grimaces. He looked up as Vimes approached and put down his pencil with a sense of vague relief. 

“Evening Commander, you’ll be wanting the report on the gentleman the Sergeant brought in earlier?” He said it like a question but was already moving before Vimes could nod his affirmative. There had been a building sense of urgency with each consecutive explosion and it was finally finding its release valve. They had something to go on even if it was a shaky and ill defined something. The Constable came up with the right bit of paperwork and handed it over. He hesitated, looking somewhat to the left of where usual eye contact would occur.

“We uh, removed his personal belongings sir,” said Haddock 

That wasn’t unusual but it was unusual to mention it. 

“And?” said Vimes.

“Including his boot laces and a necklace sir.” Ah, thought Vimes. “There were some concerning scars.” The Constable finished, looking uncomfortable. 

“Good,” Vimes shifted to make eye contact but didn’t hide his own twinge of discomfort. “Was the guard watching the cell informed?”

“Yes sir,” said Haddock “A note has been made and Sergeant Colon offered to be the overnight. There were also some things of interest in the man’s belongings that you might want to take a look at though sir. Sergeant Littlebottom was processing them in her lab last I checked.”

Things of interest? Things of interest. Why couldn’t it be things of disinterest? Or maybe things of extreme interest but without any other bits that were interesting but not relevant to the case. Like a signed note explaining how and why they did the crime. It never was. Things of interest meant things of complication.

When he found her Cherry was standing on a stool and up to her elbow in the pocket of the worn looking brown coat that had come in on the back of their number one suspect. He was only number one because they didn’t have any other suspects but the principle of the thing still stood.

The coat itself was currently hanging on the back of the lab door and covered in pinned bits of paper with numbers on them. 

“Constable Haddock sent me up. He said you found something interesting. Does that something happen to be dangerous?” said Vimes questioningly. The dwarf had a pair of thick gloves on and some protective goggles pulled over her eyes. 

“Oh it’s a lot of somethings sir.” She pulled her hand out of the pocket and dropped several glass beads into a waiting tray. “And I don’t think they’re dangerous. It's mostly just stuff,” she seemed to notice him noticing her accessories. “The goggles are standard safety procedure in the lab and I’m wearing the heavy duty gloves because the first thing I pulled out was bat guano.”

Vimes relaxed a little bit and raised an eyebrow. He looked over the number of trays and packets littering the work table. Round and tidy handwriting labeled them with either the contents or a number of guesses on what the contents could be. Bits of string and wire, a jar of something dark and sticky looking, silvery thread, various plant matter looking things, and what looked like something that definitely came from a bug. Stuff.

“Anything useful?” he asked. 

“As far as I can tell the only remarkable thing about this lot is how organized it is. I can’t think of a use for any of it but he kept it very tidy. A different pocket for everything,” she said. 

“Anything explosive?” asked Vimes. 

“No,’ Cheery shook her head. “There’s some sulfur and a bit of phosphorus but not enough to make a bang the scale we’ve been seeing. And I’m not actually certain what the components of those explosions are. We haven’t found traces of anything at the sites. I can’t find any common theme between this stuff let alone a connection to what has been going on. It’s just a bunch of, well, junk. The quality of some of these,” she gestured to the tray with little evidence packets of powders with the critical eye of a trained alchemist, “aren't even very good. Just about everything is contaminated and absolutely nothing is labeled.”

A stick of dynamite had probably been too much to ask for but he had been hoping for something useful. All of this was firmly in the interesting but not relevant category. Cherry must have seen the look on his face because she deflated slightly. She hopped off her stool and waved Vimes down to the edge of the table where two leather bound books were stacked. 

“I do think you’ll want to take a look at these though sir. These and the necklace were the only things he really seemed upset about giving up.”

Vimes looked over the necklace where it lay in its own tray. It looked like some sort of closed eye, roughly carved stone on a simple leather thong. Nothing fancy, sentimental maybe. He looked at the books, now those were more promising. Maybe his hopes of a signed confession weren’t too far off, if this was some sort of diary then there would at least be something to build off of for questioning the man. Vimes flipped open the top book and frowned. 

“Is this Überwaldian?” he asked, too pessimistic to be truly crestfallen.

“It does look it at a glance but I don’t think so. Or if it is, it's a dialect I don’t recognize.” Cheery was peering at the pages too. “I can read some of the words and the structure looks about the same but most of its nonsense to me. The other one is even worse. I don’t even know what alphabet it’s in.”

Vimes opened the second book, after the pin neat writing of the first book this one felt almost chaotic. The swooping and curving script scrawled across the page with an almost fervent energy. Margins were annotated, whole paragraphs were crossed out, the pages were ragged and stained, alien looking diagrams were scratched in and scratched out. Vimes could see where new pages of varying quality had been added in. He had no idea what any of it said. 

“You said he was upset? Was there any trouble?” asked Vimes. Cheery shook her head.

“Nothing more than arguing I think.”

“So he speaks Morporkian?” asked Vimes. The man hadn’t said anything in the alley and that could make things difficult in interrogation.

“Yes, no problems there. He was pretty quiet by the time I left with all of this,” she made a vague motion to the busyness of the table. “I think Igor was going to look in on him next.”

“Yes, Angua said he was injured. Are you finished with these?” Vimes held up one of the books. He wanted to get a closer look at them, see if he could pick out any connecting threads alongside the ball thing.

“I’m not but I’ll be working on this lot for a while.” She glared up at the coat. Clearly there were more pockets to sort through.

Vimes left her to it and made for the evidence lock up. Maybe he’d be able to see the bigger picture of the coat once it was a list on page rather than a chaos on a table but at the moment he had books and balls to look into. 

Or he had a probably magical ball to keep in a box and out of sight and books to stare at in the vague hopes that he would understand a strange and obscure dialect of Überwaldian. It’s not that the ball made his skin crawl and hands itch. It was just that there’d probably be more clues in the books. Some desperately needed insight into the man’s mind. He could look at the ball later.

There was for sure a pattern to the first book. Long pages of neat text followed by short lists and sometimes a diagram. He thought he recognized a few words from the short lists. He had seen them on old mining reports. Molasses? Or syrup maybe? It all felt too serious to be some sort of cookbook. And there was definitely a list that had bat guano on it. Or he assumed that  _ Fledermaus  _ meant bat, he knew the direct translation of the second half. 

He knew some Überwaldian, the important parts at least. 

But he didn’t know enough to get anything out of this book. Although Cheery was from Überwald and hadn’t gotten much more than him.

Vimes kept flipping through the pages in the hopes of finding some Morporkian. When he finally found some he felt he should have specified his hopes of finding some  _ useful _ Morporkian. Out of this whole book of neat writing and what felt like expensive paper the only Morporkian he could read was ‘The Traveler says hello!’. Which was accompanied by a drawing of what could either be a sausage in the company of two round potatoes or maybe a cartoon drawing of a face with two very round eyes and a very long nose. All of it was drawn in green and all of it was circled and crossed out with the same black ink of the author with the words of ‘Nein, Jester’ written next to it.

Not exactly useful but it did make the book seem like it did actually belong to a person which made Vimes feel better. 

The second book looked like more of a journal. A journal that wanted to go in eight different directions and reach seventeen different conclusions. There wasn’t a pattern to this one besides the almost fervent energy each page seemed to have. What Vimes assumed were ideas would start out big and scrawling and end up cramped running up the sides. Arrows redirected and crossed passages. Sketches of circles that contained all manner of squiggles, smudges, and blotches where they had been edited and altered. All of that and not one lick of sense. Even if he knew the language, Vimes suspected he wouldn’t be able to make sense of the flow of consciousness contained on these well worn pages. 

They were what the man hadn’t wanted to let go. They were important to him but were they important because they were necessary tools to a purpose? Or were they important because they were sentimental? 

And did either question matter because Vimes couldn’t understand a page of it? He hated getting leads in a case because more often than not they turned to a bunch of frayed rope. 

The books would go back to Cheery where they would be placed back in evidence alongside a pair of shoelaces, a necklace, and a bunch of well organized nonsense. And a mysterious ball that didn’t exactly scream magic but definitely looked like it’d enjoy whispering it ominously.

Vimes looked down where the flimsy evidence box sat. The old practice in the Watch was to put anything that was considered important to a case in a lock box. That of course told everyone exactly where all the important stuff relating to certain crimes were and expedited their disappearance. These days things were kept in plain regular boxes that looked like the most exciting thing they could contain were files.

He pulled off the lid and grimaced.

He trusted witches’ magic about as far as he could throw it which was more than he’d trust a wizard’s magic because he dropped that as soon as it was handed to him. This appeared to be neither and he didn’t even want to pick up.

There was something about it, a silent hum or an invisible sparkle, that Vimes very much did not like. The bronze and gold work gleamed invitingly and there was a clockwork feel to the whole thing. Almost like a puzzle waiting to be solved. Rings and panels fit together so perfectly there were only hairline cracks visible weaving their way across its surface.

Cautiously he picked it up. It had a weight to it, a strange weight, almost as if gravity didn’t quite know what to do with it either. As he held it he could feel it want to shift away from him as a whole, chasing whatever little movement he gave it like a snake. 

Under his fingertips he could feel one of the rings give a little, just the easiest of shifts. His fingers slid it to the left until it stopped with a click and the entire thing started to glow faintly.

Vimes slid the ring back into its starting position and put the thing back in the box and decided now would be a good time to look at paperwork. He had no interest in whatever that thing was trying to offer. It was offering trouble and that was that. It was evidence and it was going to stay in it’s box.

There was a knock on the door and he managed to hide his startled jump before the door creaked open. Igor sideled in and looked sufficiently disappointed that Vimes felt confident in his attempt to look casual. 

“I have been down with the suspect sir” lisped Igor.

“Good, have anything to report?” asked Vimes. Igor did have something to report or he wouldn’t have come all the way up to Vimes’ office.

“I had a look at his scars,” said Igor. Vimes stopped pretending to read paperwork at this and looked up. “And I don’t believe the most concerning were self inflicted.”

“No?” said Vimes. That was good in some ways but opened up some doors that were also concerning.

“No sir, too regular doesn’t fit the usual pattern,” Igor explained. “And I believe they were made with some distress from our visitor. Things heal differently when there’s that much of a struggle.”

“And the less concerning ones?” asked Vimes as he let concern solidify into something sharp and sturdy.

“Some are what I would expect on anyone who worked their hands. Perhaps in a dangerous line of work. And well the others are superficial. I said things heal differently and they don’t always heal comfortably.”

Scars ached and itched and the bad ones never let you forget that they were there. No matter how long time tried to fade them.

“Angua said something about bruises.”

Igor nodded.

“Yes sir, I believe he must have took a nasty tumble a few days ago. Nothing that won’t heal. Just some fair sized contusions and a twisted ankle. Some rest and a few good meals will set him right.” That might explain why the man hadn’t run.

“Any burns or scorch marks?” Vimes asked instead of thinking about what constituted a good meal to an Igor. 

There were all sorts of ways to take a nasty tumble. Being thrown from a horse, decent bar fight, being too close to an explosion.

“Some burns but they were minor and fairly old. I have seen worse at the Alchemists Guild,” said Igor. All that meant was the man still had all his fingers attached.

So they didn’t really have much to go on beside the man looking suspicious in the vicinity of a crime scene and smelling as if he was somehow related to the other seven. Vimes had no doubt that there was  _ something _ going on but what exactly and how the man was involved was one great tangle of a mystery. He needed to ask the man some questions and he needed to get some answers. 

“Anything else?” he asked Igor and got a shake of the head in return.

“I was just going to drop off these with Sergeant Littlebottom for analysis.” Igor held up two rolls of neatly wrapped but fairly grubby bandages that Vimes recognized from their previous residence on the man’s arms.

“You might want to wait a bit there. She didn’t seem like she was in the mood for extra work. 

“Ah, then I will make her a cup of coffee and then drop these off for analysis.”

That was smart. Coffee from Igor would make the extra work seem a lot more palatable by comparison. Vimes was pretty sure that Igor knew this.

The door creaked as Igor made his exit and left Vimes alone with his thoughts. He pulled the processing from towards him and gave it a once over. It was devoid of any personal information. No name, age, place of residence. Although judging by the man’s coat that last one might have been accurately blank. He hadn’t said anything in the alley, he hadn’t said anything when they had brought him in. The only time he had spoken was when he knew he was going to lose his books and necklace. 

It was not a lot to go off of but it would have to be enough. He felt like he still didn’t have solid enough ground to even attempt to draw a starting line. He picked up the evidence box with only a moment of disgust and went downstairs to the cellblock.

Fred was sitting behind the scuffed and worn desk when Vimes made his way down the stairs. The Sergeant was reading what was most definitely some important and official paperwork. 

“Evenin’ Commander,” he said as he put down the latest edition of the Times. “I’m afraid you’re too late for after supper tea but I can put the kettle on again.”

Fred was using the voice that was usually reserved for convincing an animal in the throws of evolutionary born paranoia that the fact that casual conversation was happening a few feet away meant that it was safe to come out from under the rock they were hiding. It was particularly effective on cornered dogs and cornered people. Fred was good at it and Vimes was thankful he had offered to take the overnight shift in the cells. If he was using that voice then it didn’t matter where the scars of most concern had come from, he was using it for a reason.

The Sergeant busied himself with the standard amount of business like bustle that came from such a practiced hand at making tea, his back to the only occupied cell. Vimes was glad that there weren't any more watchful eyes but the silence had become an inescapable pressure to fill the emptiness. 

“Our guest here seems to have misplaced his dinner roll and his biscuit” said Fred under his breath but in a casual tone that wouldn’t draw the attention of someone with too much on their mind. Vimes felt the frown on his face deepening.

It wasn’t always common practice to feed prisoners. The assumption was that why waste food when those in the cells could eat their own guilt and shame. Of course anyone who had spent time behind the bars could tell you that guilt has a nutritional content of zero and shame isn’t very filling. An experienced man would hoard the little he got in the knowledge that more wouldn’t always come and most likely would not. 

Vimes nodded a small thanks at Fred and pulled a chair in front of the lone occupied cell. He sat down with the evidence box on the floor next to him and the paperwork on his knee. He smoothed out his face.

He could see the line of tension in the man’s shoulders. His back was pressed into the corner and he hadn’t so much as shifted since Vimes had entered. He sat with his knees drawn up gripping the baggy fabric of his pant legs like his life depended on it. With the man’s grubby wraps up stairs on Cherry’s work table Vimes could see how painfully white his knuckles were.This man was one big secret bundled up in an old ratty coat and now he didn’t have the coat to hide behind and the best he could do to keep the secrets together was to hold on to himself.

“My name is Commander Sam Vimes of the City Watch. We met earlier in the alleyway this afternoon.”

There wasn’t a response.

“I’m here to ask you some questions in connection to the number of disturbances that have taken place over the last few days.”

The man hadn’t so much as blinked but Vimes hadn’t really expected his name, title, or semblance of police professionalism to work. He tossed it aside.

“It’s my job to look after the city and in order to do that I need to ask you some questions and you need to answer them.” said Vimes.

Earlier in his career Vimes might have tried the good cop/bad cop routine. Convince the suspect that they could and should in fact talk to the nice and friendly officer with the cup of tea because the alternative was the definitely not nice and very much unfriendly officer with a truchon. Vimes was never any good at the good cop side of things and he had seen to it that any officer who was any good at the bad cop side of things was no longer employed by the Watch. The best Vimes could do was be the straight forward cop. Besides, he suspected that this man had already formed opinions on good cops and he probably disagreed on the adjectives. There was enough fear in the cells at the moment.

“Your belongings are in the care of our forensics team,” team was a slightly grand way of saying mostly just Cheery and sometimes Igor when he wasn’t stitching somebody up but the man didn’t need to know that. “I understand their importance to you and want to be clear that they are being treated with the utmost care and will be returned to you at the time of your release.”

That didn’t get much of a response. Maybe a bit of a shift but that could have just been the discomfort of the cell bench. It was something and Vimes could work with that. 

“Look, the only thing I care about in regards to you is the resolving of this case. If you are somehow involved then you will be treated by the law with the same rights as any other person in this city. If you aren’t somehow involved then your belongings will be returned to you and you can get on your way.”

There still wasn’t an actual response but they had to start somewhere. Vimes pointedly looked over the processing form and not at the man. He held a pencil at the ready.

“What’s your name?” asked Vimes and waited in the silence.

“Caleb Widogast” said the man after a lengthy pause, his voice rough but quiet enough that the bigness of the cell block threatened to swallow it back up into the shadows where it clearly wanted to remain. 

And something in Vimes’ head went  _ ping _ and then a second something went  _ ping? _ as if it hadn’t actually been too sure why it had gone  _ ping _ in the first place.That was a fake name. Vimes knew it was a fake name. The man had said it too quickly, too smoothly, like a lie he had practiced it too well. Except that it wasn’t a lie. Not all the way. It had started as a lie for sure but now it was something approaching the truth. Whoever this man had been before he was Caleb Widogast now. Vimes wrote that down.

“And what business do you have in Ahnk-Morpork?”

The silence washed back in as Caleb frowned, mouthing the name of the city. His accent was thick and the cut of his clothes looked a little odd but everyone had heard of Ahnk-Morpork. That wasn’t Vimes’ civic pride speaking either, most of the things people had heard about Ahnk-Morpork weren’t good things but people had still heard them. 

“Mr.Widogast?” Vimes prodded. The response took a few more seconds.

“Ah, I-I am looking for my friends.” Friends huh? Judging by Angua’s nose they were for sure in the city and they were at numerous crime scenes.

“And once you find them?” asked Vimes. Caleb was still staring at the floor, eyes wide as if he was actively searching for them. 

“We will be traveling back home.” His answers were meek and inoffensive and devoid of any useful information. Vimes pressed on, pretending to write down notes. 

“And where would that be?”

There was no response. Vimes switched tactics.

“What were you doing on Gleam Street this afternoon before you were apprehended.” There was no response. Vimes hadn’t really expected one. He hadn’t really expected to get a name let alone the crumbs of other answers but he still needed information and it didn’t need to be in the form of words.

“Did it have anything to do with this?” Vimes reached into the evidence box with some well hidden trepidation and pulled out the sphere.

Caleb Widogast looked at him. He looked at the ball in Vimes’ hand first and then up searching Vimes’ face. Vimes searched right back.

There was definitely recognition, but just for a second. Relief? It was harder to tell, that emotion was gone faster than the first. And then the man was back to staring at the floor.

Cautiously Vimes told himself that was good. He told himself that it was good because it was solidifying leads in the case. Here was a strong indication that this man was indeed involved in the incidents. But also it shifted the bit of dread and discomfort that had sprouted up at the silence in the alley.

The man looked grim. He was very good at it. And if Vimes had to guess, by the way the man sat hunched and curled in the corner and wouldn’t look him in the eye for more than a second, the man had had plenty of practice. Sometimes when someone didn’t look you in the eye it was because they believed that they would give something in themselves away. A lie or a secret. But you didn’t need to look a person in the eye to see things like that.

“Do you know what it is or what it’s used for?” asked Vimes.

There was a pause and a shake of the head. Caleb’s mouth was firmly shut.

“Look I don’t want to bring in the wizards…” Vimes’ voice got caught up in his thoughts. The man had flinched. Not a guilty ‘I’ve been found out’ flinch. But a ‘trying very hard not to flinch because any sort of movement will get me noticed’ flinch. Vimes forced his mouth to keep moving despite the uneasy murmurs that had started up in his head. “But I’ve got a city to protect and if this artifact can pose a magical threat then the proper parties need to be informed.”

It had been an empty threat and now it was positively a husk. No wizards were getting anywhere near this station until he had a better picture of what was going on. 

Wizards weren’t supposed to be afraid of other wizards. They were supposed to think that other wizards, although clearly smarter than the average person, were not as smart as them and therefore couldn’t be much of a threat. They ate a lot of cheese and spent time doing things that sounded important but were actually quite useless like philosophizing. They didn’t leave scars and flinches behind.

Old fear Angua had said.

Unpleasant puzzle pieces were clicking together in Vimes’ mind. The hunched shoulders and the haunted eyes. The look of panic that was so deeply etched that it was bleeding out from under the man’s blank mask. 

Someone with too much power and too many ideas of what to do with it was out there doing all the worst ideas.

And Vimes couldn’t do anything about it because all he had at the moment was suspicions and a man who by the look of him had never been ready to talk but was definitely done now. He was clutching at the front of his worn and stained shirt and looking as if his control over his breathing was one more question away from shattering is a bunch of panicking pieces. 

“I think that will be all for tonight Mr. Widogast. I’ll have some more questions for you in the morning.”

He didn’t get a response. He hadn’t expected one.

There hadn’t been any more explosions since they had brought Caleb in so maybe that luck would continue to hold. Vimes had to think. He felt like he had caught a snake that was in fact the tail of a much larger beast and he didn’t know how to let go let alone what to do next.

Vimes placed the ball back into its box and stood, dragging the chair back over to where Fred was still most definitely doing very important paperwork at the desk. 

“I think that’s for the evening,” said Vimes quietly, “I appreciate you taking this shift so short notice Sergeant.”

Fred nodded, clearly in agreement that such a close overnight watch was still necessary.

“Not a problem Commander. I’ll see what I can do about his 5b rights although we might have some Tea Time Assortment I can dig out. Tea should be just about ready I’d say.”

Caleb Widogast was in good enough hands for the night. 

Vimes walked to the base of the stairs and looked back at the man in the cell. He could hear the footsteps of a couple of someones coming down. 

He spoke, making his voice as hard as an anvil because he wanted there to be no doubt that the words were true.

“Mr.Widogast let me clear. This is my city and this is my Watch House and therefore you are under my protection until this business is sorted out. I promise you that.” 

They were true and Sam Vimes did not break promises. 

A somber silence hung in the air before it was artfully broken by voices belonging to the footsteps on the stairs above. 

“Do you have any like, extra comfortable cells? With some pillows or something?” said a woman’s voice. Too bright and cheerful to sound like it was on its way to a cell. 

“No, these are the only cells available unless you want to take a trip up to the Tanty,” said what sounded like a very strained Constable Visit.

“The Tainty?”

“No, Tan-tee” said Visit, drawing the words out with what might have been a bit of desperation.

“Taint.”

Well, it had been a good moment before they were interrupted. Had he understood? Did the man believe him? Vimes looked towards the cell and Caleb Widogast looked back towards him.

There was a glimmer of hope. Just the smallest flash in a vast plane of darkness. But you could work with a glimmer. A glimmer was basically a gleam and a gleam was practically a spark. 

And you could start fires with a spark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vimes @ the whole Cerberus Assembly: Turn on your locations, I just want to talk.
> 
> Caleb ain't having a good time but don't worry! Friends are on the way!


	3. Chapter 3

Vimes stood aside as Constable Visit and another watchman escorted a young woman down the stairs. She was short and tidy and entirely too cheery to be someone on their way to a night in the cells. As they walked past Vimes revised his tidy observation. Her clothes might have been fine at some point but he could see where bits had been stained or mended. The green cloak over her shoulders was torn at the hem and he could see mud up one sleeve. 

Carrot was following behind the presession. He stopped level with Vimes and the two of them watched as the woman seemed to freeze at the site of the cellblock. It took a firm nudge from Visit to get her moving again. Vimes would have said that the previous cheeriness had to have been an act but as she entered her cell and the door locked behind her there was a smile on her face possibly even brighter than before. Either she was a really good actor or she was genuinely happy and Vimes was a little concerned to realize he had no idea which.

She reached through the bars and gave the surprised Visit a tug on the sleeve. The man jumped. He had been standing too close but if Vimes wasn’t mistaken the man was actually flustered. Constable Visit, a man who could walk into the Pink Pussycat Club and look the employees in the face and only the face without breaking a sweat. 

This man was flustered. 

“If you don’t have an extra comfy cell can I at least have an extra blanket?” said the woman, eyes bright and twinkling. She had an accent in the vague direction of Quirm. Maybe? Vimes couldn’t place it. He looked to Carrot questioningly as Visit stumbled and flubbed through a standard issue telling off from the Watch. 

Carrot produced a folded piece of paper and handed it over to Vimes.

“Fiona Fancypants according to her. Our serial graffiti artist,” said Carrot. “We got a copy for her record of the iconograph from Otto, although I’m guessing this one won’t make it into the Times.”

Vimes looked at the picture impressed. She had taken all the crude drawings and rude words already painted and etched on the wall in true Morporkian fashion and combined them into one big ruder and cruder mural. That took some serious skill. 

“We had to check and make sure she knew she was being arrested because she just chatted the whole back to the Watch House,” said Carrot.

“What did she say to that?”

“That yes of course she knew what was happening. It was just usually the guards weren’t as nice as Constable Visit and myself.” Carrot was smiling a little bit past his default expression.

“It’s true!” Miss Fancypants called out over Visit’s telling off. “You’ve been super nice to me Mr. Captain. And you are doing such a good job too, I’m like so arrested right now.”

The last part was directed towards Visit who had gamely tried to keep telling her off through the interruption. Vimes snorted.

“Get her an extra blanket Constable,” he said. He motioned for Carrot to follow him up stairs. Fred and Visit could handle the new occupant for the moment.

Although.

The man had looked hunted. Hunted by who though was the question. Sometimes bad people were hunted for the right reasons and sometimes good people were hunted for the wrong reasons. Vimes knew that, it was his whole job. And if he had to guess it wasn’t former. The right people usually didn’t leave scars up and down a man’s arms no matter how right they thought they were.

“Place another guard down in the cells.” Vimes said. He didn’t think Miss Fancypants was a threat, judging by the iconograph her passions lay elsewhere. But people with such a slimy grip on power didn’t always hold respect for other establishments of society. Whoever had made Caleb Widogast into the man he was today probably did not have an inchworm of respect for good and decent laws.

“Do you think there’s danger of him getting hurt?” Carrot asked, catching on to his concerns quickly. 

Vimes could hear the unsaid ‘from other or from himself’ and he could practically feel the concern pouring off the Captain. Igor had ruled out most of the scars but had very definitely not ruled out all of them. He knew that Carrot had seen all sorts of people in all sorts of dark places. But he wondered how close Carrot had really been to it. Not Carrot himself, turmoil like that had taken one look at the dwarf and had probably decided it would find a better home in a patch of sunflowers. But on the job and in his life. 

“No, I don’t think so.” But someone had hurt him before and given him reason to be scared and that left a shadow that was hard to scrub out. He knew what it looked like when those in charge stopped thinking of prisoners as people and that wouldn’t be happening here. “But we can’t be too careful.”

Carrot nodded and left to take care of it. Vimes wandered upstairs and returned the box to evidence. He locked the door and then double checked that he had locked it.

He should probably examine the ball closer. Try to cross examine it with the books again. Or go down to Cheery and look through the coat contents. He should maybe write down his notes from talking with Caleb. Try to see if writing down what he knew would relinquish a better perspective. 

The problem he didn’t know much and all he did know made it seem like he knew even less. He’d lift up a rock to try and find an answer and all he’d find underneath were a bunch of little new questions scuttling around. 

He should probably get some sleep.

It was getting too close to tomorrow for the amount of sleep Vimes hadn’t got. There was just so much, that he didn’t know, that needed to be done, that couldn’t be done, that he didn’t know needed to be done.

Maybe things would be clearer in the morning. Maybe something else would go wrong and there’d be more information to build off of because right now all Vimes felt like he had was some rusty nails and unstable facts making up the foundation. 

Vimes went home.

Things it turned out were not clearer but closer to the consistency of mud. Vimes got out of bed after a good nights staring at the ceiling until his eyes ached. 

Had he slept? Not really. But he had spent some time laying still which usually did a decent job of tricking his body into thinking that it had rested. 

Had he pieced together relevant information into a cohesive picture detailing motive, method, and suspects? Also no. But maybe things back at the Watch House had had enough time overnight to molder into something interesting to poke at. 

He was sent out the door with a flask of coffee and a kiss from Sybil which at least made the grogginess peach tinged as he walked through the early morning streets and towards Pseudopolis Yard.

That lasted until Vimes walked through the door and into a wall.

“Oh um, sorry,” said the wall. “Do you work here?”

Vimes looked up into a pale face surrounded with wild and untamed hair. A tattoo dripped down a chin and mismatched eyes pierced into him without giving the impression that they were trying very hard to do so.

“What?” He shook his head and tried to gather up the thoughts that had scattered at the impact. “Yes I work here?” 

He wasn’t sure if anyone had ever asked him that. It was generally pretty obvious.

“Okay, then I would like to be arrested please.”

Vimes stared up at the woman. He was positive that absolutely nobody, in his entire career in the Watch, had ever asked him that.

“Are you admitting to a crime?”

“No, I…” the woman cringed slightly.

“Haven’t done anything wrong?” said Vimes. That almost felt like familiar territory except the woman was shaking her head. “We can’t arrest you if you haven’t committed a crime. We uphold laws, we don’t bend them in either direction.”

“A crime?” the woman said almost to herself. She looked like she was working through a particularly trying dilemma.

“Look, don’t go robbing a bank or something. If you want to see how the watch works we do guided tours every other-”

This time the wall ran into Vimes and it was shaped rather like a fist.

The room spun down in a spiral, throwing up a collective yell of surprise from the officers on duty. Vimes felt stars erupt across his vision followed very quickly by a more permanent pain.

By the time the room and his head had stopped spinning the woman was on the ground with Detritus on top of her reading her her rights. There were hands under his armpits helping him to his feet. He brushed them off only after he was successfully standing. 

“I’m alright…” he said to the nearest worried face. And he was alright, he had definitely had worse, and as far as impacts with walls went it had felt like the wall had held back.

“-placing you under arrest for assaulting a member of the City Watch. You have the right to…” 

Vimes had something to say about that but he couldn’t hear it over the ringing in his head. It was probably fine. 

What wasn’t fine was the very large sword that the woman had been in possession of, and was now in the mildly terrified hands of a watchman. Nobody owned a sword like this. Sure people owned swords, but they were swords for hacking or slashing. Things of utility. This sword though, this sword was for slicing through dreams and pulling out nightmares. A punch by comparison wasn’t bad.

“Good morning sir,” said a voice by his elbow. He looked down into the face of Cheery. She offered up a slab of meat on a cleanish bit of cloth. “From Igor, for your eye, to keep the swelling down. He said it's horse.”

Could Vimes identify horse meat from some other variety? No. Was he going to question Igor in this particular instance? Also no. The ‘steak’ felt cool against his already throbbing eye and he wasn’t going to question the rate at which the meat appeared either.

“Morning,” he said to the dwarf as he gathered up his rescattered thoughts into some semblance of functional. He wasn’t badly injured, just badly surprised. There were more important things to do this morning. He had to yell over the hubbub. “Detritus, do a full intake and keep it clean. I’m fine.”

He made sure to sound as much like Commander Vimes, Duke of Ankh-Morpork as he possibly could at this point in the morning. All of the old Watch had seen him go down before. They had stood alongside him and they had helped each other up and dusted each other off when the city bowled them over time and time again. But there were stories about Vimes now. Stories that the newer watchmen brought into the force that put Vimes up on a pedestal with a shiny plack that said something embarrassing like ‘Hero’. And it’s always worrying when the figure you thought of as a hero goes down like a sack of rocks after one punch. Nobody wants to be reminded of morality before their first mug of tea on shift. 

So Vimes got up, dusted himself off, slapped what probably wasn’t even in the same genus as horse on his eye and told everyone through example to get back to work. 

“Have you got anything for me?” he asked Cheery. The dwarf caught his very clear intent to get the day moving. She beckoned he follow her over to the duty desk neatly parting the crowd of officers with her purpose. With the woman under control and being led away and Vimes refusing to do anything more interesting than work people were beginning to drift away towards things they should have been doing. 

“Well, I’ve catalogued everything if you want to take a look and I was able to cross reference some of what I could identify with the first journal. I think it could be some sort of recipe or direction book. I’ve got the list here. The check marks indicate-”

But Vimes wasn’t listening; he was too busy staring.

“Why does Dorfel have eyebrows Sergeant?” Vimes asked as the golem trundled by. 

“Miss Fancypants painted them for him.” Cheery said giving Vimes a smile that was so far into sheepish territory that it had probably met the shepherd. He squinted at her with his one good eye. There was something different about the dwarf. Her eyes, they looked bigger somehow. And sparkly.

“And where did she get the paint?” Vimes asked, deciding to ignore the sparkly.

“We aren’t actually sure sir. We definitely searched her when she was brought in and she didn’t have the paint then. She did do a good job though didn’t she?” 

They really were well done eyebrows. Very even and with a level of sterness that fit the stoic face of the golem. And the thing was that Dorfel had to have consented to the eyebrows. You couldn’t get a golem to do anything it didn’t want to and that included standing in front of a jail cell long enough to be painted on. Besides, it's not as if they could charge the woman for  _ facing _ private property. 

“She also made Constable Visit cry sir.” Cheery added.

Oh, well that one might be a public service.

“Anyway the check marks-”

“Excuse me?” 

Cheery was interrupted again, this time by a study looking woman who had a well worn coat thrown over a floury apron. She was accompanied by a tall weedy looking man who looked as if he had sprouted out of the ground and decided right there in then to farm it. He had the strawhat, the well patched work shirt, and an air about him that implied he didn’t mind waiting for things to grow.

Vimes wondered if the inconvenient people of the city got together every Sunday and planned out ways in which they could work together to be even more inconvenient or if it just came naturally to them.

“I’ve just helped this gentleman find his way here. He’d like to file a missing person report,” said the woman. 

Both Vimes and Cheery froze for a few seconds in the hopes that the woman and man wouldn’t see them and move on or failing that someone with less important things to do would step in so they could go back to what they were working on. Neither happened. Cheery gave in first and pulled out the correct form, smiling her most public facing smile while Vimes tried for his most public facing grimace. 

“Alright, what’s the missing person’s name?” she asked, craning her neck to look up at the man. 

“Caduceus Clay,” said the man. Cheery’s smile got a little fixed. 

“Could you spell that for me?”

“Probably.” The man was smiling back in a way that implied he had never even considered sarcasm as a conversational device in his life. Vimes felt a brief kinship with Cheery and the woman as they all stared at the man, waiting for him to continue. He didn’t.

“Alright.” Cheery wrote down an approximation. “And their physical description?”

“Tall, wears a straw hat,” said the tall man wearing a straw hat.

“Is he your brother or something?” Cheery asked.

“Oh, no no. He’s me.”

There was another pause as the man’s words took them another step away from the usual conversational foot path. 

“I’m sorry but we don’t usually let people fill out missing person’s reports for themselves.”

‘What if I fill it out?” Said the woman in the apron with the air of someone who fully recognized what had come out of her mouth but was in the mindset that if she said it with enough stone faced conviction nobody would tell her how silly it sounded.

“Well then we’d just tell you we’d found him because he’s right here,” Vimes was also aware that she was aware that he was aware that they all thought this was ridiculous.

“I’m sure it won’t take long for me to be found,” said the man with a smile well and truly into the territory known as oblivious. 

There was another pause and Vimes decided it wasn’t worth searching for the first shoe let alone waiting for the second one to drop. 

‘You’re welcome to wait here for whoever might be looking for you.” Any sternness Vimes was trying for slid off the man’s smile like water from a duck who didn’t care about getting damp in the first place. “But this isn’t a hotel and you can’t stay overnight. There are benches over there and if you disrupt anyone’s work you’ll be asked to leave.”

“Much appreciated,” the man nodded at Vimes before turning to the woman. “And thank you for showing me the way here Miss Sugarbean.”

She waved off the thanks.

“Not a problem, you’d have been lost the second you were out of sight and lost things don’t tend to turn up in Anhk-Morpork. Now I’ve got be getting on. Best of luck in finding your friends Mr.Clay.”

She gave an awkward half nod half curtsy to Vimes and Cheery and left before the politeness of decent conversation gave up under the strain of Mr.Clay’s strangeness. 

They watched as the man gave them both a nod wandered over to the benches with a slight smile on his face. 

“Okay,” said Vimes finally turning back to the issue at hand. “What was this about check marks- Oh damn.”

The words were still coming out of his mouth when he saw tidy little form of Otto Chriek in the direction of the front door. Unless something very exciting had happened and nobody had thought to inform him Vimes was pretty sure what Otto had shown up to take pictures of. 

Commander of the City Watch attacked in his own Watch House. 

It was alright to pretend for the junior watchmen that Old Vimes was just a little bit invincible. It was bad to remind the city that Old Vimes could be punched.

There was de Worde too, damn again. Cheery saw them too, she passed over the list with a sense of grim defeat.

“I’ll run interference sir. Take a look over this and let me know what you think.”

“Thanks Cheery. If they ask about this,” he proffered the steak(?), “tell them it’s an open case-”

“And we can’t comment,” Cheery finished for him. 

“And under no circumstances are they allowed near the cells,” Vimes added.

“Yes sir, now I would leave if I was you unless you did actually want to talk to those two.”

Vimes left. Taking the list and disappearing up the stairs before Mr. de Worde could give him a friendly smile that was chock full of questions just waiting to find their dance partners and get written down. 

It would have been helpful to look over the list and journals talk it through with Cheery but then again maybe it would be better to form his own opinions then he could compare them with the Sergeant’s who would probably be more in the vicinity of being correct. But at least he could make her conclusion look good by comparison. They all had their strengths and his were not fiddlely little details and lists. 

He shut the door to his office behind him and settled down behind his desk. Flipping the steak over to press the cooler side against his eye which was well and truly throbbing now. He knew the puzzle of the last few days had a shape. He even had some of the pieces. One was down in the cells. The others were in the evidence lock up, and now he had a new one right in front of him. All he needed was some undisturbed time to think about how they all fit together. Some peace and quiet for him to think.

His door slammed open and Carrot and Angua marched into the room. 

Carrot had the friendly and affable smile that counted as a blank look for him. Angua looked ready for murder. Vimes fought with his eyebrows to keep them in the neutral position they were in. Dried blood covered the Sergeant’s chin and lips and there were little wads of fabric shoved up each nostril. 

“We caught a woman attempting to break out of the University,” she gritted out. Vimes could see the raised hackles under her skin. If he pretended hard enough maybe he could forget he was holding a bloody piece of meat.

“Out? Do you mean she was leaving?” He asked.

“She was leaving sir,” Carrot cut in, ”but usually people leave through the gates and not over a wall with a bunch of other people shouting at them.”

“Do you think she’s related to the…” Vimes didn’t finish the thought. Angua looked past murderous and already thinking about which bridge would be the best to drop the body off of. 

“I. Don’t. Know.” There was a growl just under words just wanting to be noticed. He wasn’t sure if she had blinked yet but he was sure she wasn’t showing her teeth in a smile. “I will let you know as soon as Igor has set my nose and the swelling has gone down enough for me to smell anything.”

“There was a bit of an altercation and a chase.” Carrot said.

“But you caught her?”

“Oh yes she ended up getting cornered in a dead end off of Moon Pond Lane,” Carrot said. Vimes knew that Carrot wasn’t oblivious. He was incredibly observant and insightful and knew the Sergeant very well. He was also very good at pretending the woman next to him wasn’t about to rip someone’s head off. 

“Well I’m sure the Captain can handle the report. Why don’t you go get your nose seen too Sergeant?”

They both waited until she had gone before Carrot leaned in.

“She’s just mad because she was the only one that got punched and that woman was a good bit faster than her,” he said under his breath. Vimes’ eyebrows were now free to climb up his forehead. Faster than Angua and had managed to climb the University walls? And then she got caught down a blind alley. 

“Trying to leave the University isn’t exactly a crime but assaulting an officer sure is. Have we gotten any more complaints from the wizards?” He asked. 

Carrot shook his head no.

“We haven’t but I’ll hold off on her official charges until after breakfast.”

It was unlikely to see a wizard anywhere but the table around meal time and meal times tended to go on for quite awhile. 

“Best wait until after lunch.” The two tending to blend into each other. Carrot nodded at that.

“I heard there was a bit of trouble this morning,” said the dwarf, who could definitely see the clear mark of trouble written on Vimes’ face. Vimes’ waved him off.

“Not too bad, just surprising that’s all. I hadn’t had any coffee yet.”It was pretty clear by how unwaved off Carrot was that Vimes had maintained the same level of reverence from the Captain, clear sign of injury or not. “No permanent harm done and the woman is in the cells now so we can get to the bottom of her life of crime.”

Although they likely wouldn’t have to dig very far. Anyone who punched a watchman in a Watch House hadn’t planned very far ahead.

Carrot left to fill out proper paperwork on the latest arrest which left Vimes with his thoughts. Or where his thoughts would have been if he had had more sleep and less concussion. He gave the flask Sybil had given him that morning a hopeful shake but it was empty of good ideas as well as coffee. 

He glared at the desk and willed some to appear. He’d take either at this point but neither seemed willing to show up. 

He sighed and stood up. Even if a mug of coffee had miraculously appeared in front of him he’d probably dump it down the drain and go get a fresh non-miracle one from the urn in the canteen. It was a good idea to distrust things that showed up right when you needed them. Coincidence was a sure sign that the universe was up to something. 

Besides, he thought as he left his office, he was always better at piecing things together on his feet. That’s how he had done it since he had started with the Watch and habits that deep didn’t die just because you became someone important enough to have your own office. His thought process was powered by his boots and they needed to be moving to get anything done.

“Morning Nobby” Vimes said as he passed the smaller figure in the hall. 

He should have asked Angua to take a look at the journals. Maybe she would recognize the dialect. And he should probably return the steak to Igor. It was decidedly too close to room temperature to be doing any good and was probably well on it’s way to making some sort of interesting smell.

Absently he patted down his pockets to make sure that Nobby had passed him on the side containing four pennies, two paper clips, a definitely long enough to be useful in some way piece of string, and a respectful amount of lint. Not the side that had a dollar, the little piece of iron he had gotten from Caleb, and the folded drawing Young Sam had presented him over breakfast the other day of what might have been a picture of a cat but was mostly an orange blob. The picture would eventually turn up somewhat guiltily in his desk but it was the principle of the thing. Plus there would be finger prints.There were always fingerprints when it came to Nobby.

Vimes stopped.

His pockets weren’t empty. Either of them. Change, string, picture, paperclip, and iron. It was all still there.

He whirled around but the figure that definitely had not been Nobby Nobbs was gone. Where had they come from? The evidence room was in that direction and Vimes already had a guess as to what was missing and where that figure was headed. Panic filled him like ice, settling into his boots and sending his thoughts spinning rapidly.

He ran.

First to evidence to confirm his suspicions with empty shelves and then down towards the cells. Pelting down the stairs and ignoring the concerned questions that were called after him. 

They still didn’t know what the sphere did. Just that it was magical. Which meant they knew what the sphere could do was be dangerous. He had gotten too compliant. Dastardly plots happened in the dead of night or in the early witching hours before the day had properly formed. They didn’t happen midmorning after a nice long rest and some breakfast.

He could hear people following him. The older members of the watch tended to know that Sam Vimes only ran when it was important and usually towards trouble and the younger members knew enough to follow the old. He took the stairs two at a time, trusting his boots and the years of practice the feet inside them had had to keep the rest of him upright.

Vimes reached the cell level and stopped short. 

There was a great clattering and shouting behind him as everyone else stopped a bit longer than short. Fortunately Detritus had been right behind Vimes and took the full brunt of the avalanche of watchmen without blinking an eye. Not that Detritus blinked frequently. In general it took a lot to make a troll blink and coworkers were not considered a lot.

Vimes took the scene in less than a second. Two of the cells were open and the little form of Not-Nobby Nobbs was working on the lock of the pale woman that had taken Vimes down with a single punch. They glanced over their shoulder at the crowd and kept working their tools with a frantic energy.

Of the three guards that had been on duty two were paralized in an approximately defensive position and one was laying on the floor. Groaning, therefore definitely not dead. 

There was a woman standing over him, her eyes on the stairs. Muscles rippled under tanned skin, her clothes, loose and blue, promised ease of movement. She stood with the confidence of a snake about to strike. This must be the woman that had gotten the jump on Angua. The broken nose made a lot more sense now.

She had paused when Vimes and half the watch had appeared, eyes taking in the crowd and alighting somewhere over Vimes right shoulder. The tension of the room was thick and getting thicker. He had promised Caleb Widogast that he would be safe in these cells and that had turned into a lie before the guards on duty could even shout for help.

There was a click of a lock and the woman in blue moved at one of the cell guards still standing, almost faster than Vimes could follow. Going from a roundhouse kick to two sharp punches that found the exact gaps where armor didn’t quite meet. The second watchman went down like a sack of stones. It was clear that checking this woman for weapons had been a fruitless task. This woman was a weapon. 

Vimes was a fighter, he could fight with the best of them and when he couldn’t he could fight dirty enough that best didn’t matter. But this, he watched in awe at precision movements, this was the work of a master. No, the work of an artist. 

There was movement besides Vimes and he grabbed to stop whoever was trying to go forward from getting within range of this woman.

“Excuse me,” said the deep voice of Mr. Clay, the missing person who had turned himself in earlier. Vimes stared up at him and then flinched back.

The appearance of the tattered farmer blinked away in an instant and Vimes was met with the face of an alien he had never seen before. The gray furred face, the horizontal pupils, and the shock of unnatural pink hair. The monster loomed over Vimes. Except that monsters usually didn’t smile pleasantly as if you just offered them a nice cup of tea.

He pulled his arm out of Vime’s nerveless grasp and continued forward.

“Oh good are we doing that now? Mine is about to wear out anyway.” 

The pleasant face of Fiona Fancypants disappeared and blue skin and curled horns were in their place. The mischievous twinkle in her eye, Vimes noted, stayed exactly where it had been. Vimes took in her appearance and had no idea what he was looking at. He could feel the stunned silence behind him, confusion building like steam in a pressure cooker, desperate for a release in the form of an explanation. Any explanation.

Mr. Clay had reached the others and turned to face the stairs. The woman in blue was backing up to join them.

They were closing around the cell. 

But Vimes didn’t move. He watched. There was something in the way they moved. Not in a threatening manner. Not in a way that they wished it’s occupant any harm. No, they were closing shoulder to shoulder with their backs to Caleb Widogast. Closing ranks. They were protecting him. 

He was looking for his friends he had said. 

But hang on. Eight. There had been eight explosions. And there were four figures surrounding Caleb’s cell plus the not-Nobby who was working on the lock and had become a goblin while Vimes had been trying to process another slippery piece of information. He set that aside to deal with it never.

That was six. Seven if you counted the sphere. Which left one more.

Vimes looked at the last guard still standing. Properly looked. He didn’t recognize them. Well he recognized the shape of them and out of the corner of his eye he would have been able to dismiss the figure as any old guardsman. But looking at them directly that fell apart. They were too perfect of an approximation. Average height, ruddy face, armor not fitting in just the right way. Something being too perfect is a clear mark of something being wrong.

He watched as a nondescript pair of eyes sharpened into a cat's piercing yellow and and an unremarkable face turn a deep and vibrant green. An orc. There was an orc in the cells smiling at Vimes with a pink backpack on and the pale woman’s sword strapped to his back. 

Vimes’ thought processes failed to process. He stood frozen for a few seconds as systems reconfigured themselves back into the safety of what was considered his default. Being a copper. 

He had the picture of the puzzle now even if it didn’t make much sense. The best he could do is figure out where some of the pieces went. For his own sake of mind if nothing else. It would make the paper work just a little bit easier later on.

“Which one of you punched the-” here he had to pause and think about the long list of titles that had come along with the report Carrot had briefly shown him and eventually went with the one that had at least made a little bit of sense “-Master of Tradition over at the University?” 

He was met with blank stares. He tried again.

“Some guy with a pointy hat that probably took a lot of words to say you weren’t allowed to be there.” If he could at least confirm this crime he could have an answer when a wizard showed up to complain

Three hands went up. Vimes looked at Not-Nobby.

“I bit someone in a robe. Does that count?” she said.

“What? No? I guess? Why did so many of you go there?” Vimes had only gotten one report of a wizard getting attacked. 

“We heard there was a library and figured Caleb might be there,” blue skin and horns shrugged, she hadn’t been one of the three to raise a hand. She gave him the same very big smile as last night when she was being arrested. Vimes noticed some of her teeth looked more like fangs than teeth. He ignored that. “It’s happened before.”

“And none of you ran into a very angry orangutan?” How many had gotten in and out of the University without being noticed? 

“What the fuck does that mean?” said the woman wearing blue. 

There was some murmuring behind Vimes.

“Is she allowed to say that?” said someone, barely above a staircase inclusive whisper. Vimes thought that even if the woman was not allowed to say that, she wouldn’t care very much. He kept that to himself.

“So none of you found anyone at the Library multiple times so you all decided…” Vimes trailed off.

“To get arrested!” Probably-not-actually-called-Fiona said. “Mostly!”

“I’m really sorry about the…” said the tall and terrifying woman gesturing to her eye. She turned to the somehow even taller but somehow less terrifying Mr. Clay. “Could you like, you know?”

She made a vague handwave in Vimes’ direction. Mr. Clay caught whatever intended meaning and nodded with an easy smile.

“Of course,” he said and turned his gaze on to Vimes. “Not a problem at all. We apologize for the disturbances Commander and greatly appreciate your hospitality.”

A large grey hand traced lines into the air and Vimes could swear he saw a greenish glow following the fingers. Before he could speak up to tell them that he under no uncertain terms wanted what they were offering a breeze blew over him. It felt so pure and clean that it stole the words from Vimes’ Morporkian raised mind. 

It took a few seconds for the shock to wear off for him to realize that the breeze had stolen away the painful throbbing of his eye. He stared at Mr.Clay who smiled back. 

The whole group was shuffling closer and settling together with an air of comfort and a distinct lack of worry. 

Caleb had said all he wanted was to get home but Vimes couldn’t see how that was going to happen when all of them were trapped down in the cells with half the Watch blocking all of the exits. Crimes had still been committed and worse, questions had been asked. He couldn’t just let them go.

There was a glint of gold from between the close pressed shoulders and a mechanical click that rang out.

“Does everyone have everything? I do not think I can get us back here once we leave.” Caleb Widogast’s voice was still rough but the tone was not quite as heavy. Whatever burden he bore was evidently much easier to carry with friends around him. Eyes clear and blue met Vimes’. “Well, alright. Hopefully we end up in the right place this time. On behalf of the Mighty Nein, I wish you a good rest of your day Commander.”

There was one more click and then there was a loud flash and a louder BANG and the definantly huddled group of seven were gone. 

The door to what had been Caleb’s cell swung slightly as air rushed in to fill the space where people had stood. Some paperwork fluttered off the desk in a belated effort to get in on the action. It took a bit for the silence of the now empty cells to be heard over the ringing in everyone’s ears. Nobody moved. 

“Should we do a search sir? Of the area?” Detritus asked, behind him uncertainty backed up by the murmuring of very confused watchmen just starting to build up to a clamor.

“I-yes?” said Vimes with a few fraying threads of conviction. Usually when suspects disappeared without a trace it wasn’t literally and it wasn’t right in front of him. He had things to solve. Facts to piece together into one picture that finally made sense. He had questions.

“Commander!” shouted a voice from up the stairs.

“What?” The clamor was quickly becoming a hubbub but Vimes had plenty of practice at being louder.

“Um,” it took a set of lungs to make an ‘um’ carry that well in a noisy crowd but the speaker seemed to think it was important. “Lord Vetinari is in your officer sir. He says he apologies for the short notice but he would like to speak to you when you next get a chance.”

That killed the blossoming hubbub faster than any herbicide. 

“The Arch Chancellor is also here and,” here the speaker realized she didn’t need to shout over the silence and continued on in a much more subdued voice, “he said to hurry it up when you next get a chance.” 

Right. Well then. Both Vetinari and Arch Chancellor Ridcully were here. In his office. For the first time in recorded history. And Vimes had no answers to go with all of the Patrician’s questions. That wasn’t unusual at least.

Vimes turned to Detritus.

“Do a thorough search of the area. I don’t think you’re going to find anything but do it just to be sure. Then I want to get the word out to the other Watch Houses of who to look out for and then send clacks to every manned outpost you can think of. Big and small. I don’t think they meant any harm but we’ve still got some things to ask them.”

Detritus nodded and Vimes went to his office. He paused at the top of the last flight stairs to straighten out his uniform in an effort to straighten out his thoughts. It didn’t do much good.

“Ah Vimes,” said Vetinari before Vimes had properly stepped into his own office. The man was standing, looking over what appeared to be Cheery’s checklist. “The Arch Chancellor and I were just wondering if you would be so kind as to-”

He was interrupted by a knock at the door and Vimes felt just a little bit better knowing that it wasn’t just happening to him today. As one they turned to look at the open door.

Stood beside an anxious looking lance-constable was a rather gangly looking youth in a Post Office uniform who appeared to be rapidly going through all the stages of grief simultaneously with the realization of who exactly they had just interrupted. They swallowed and gamely spoke looking at Vimes and only Vimes in an apparent attempt to not bring the presence of the two other men into their own personal reality.

“You’ve got a message sir. It came through the mail-sorting-engine around about two hours ago.” They handed over a few slips of paper and stepped back with a nervous half bow. “The Postmaster General would also like to request that you, in his words sir, ‘Knock off whatever you’ve done to make the damned machine glow green like that it’s scaring everyone here and I’ve had to evacuate the building please and thank you’.”

Vimes took the papers and gave a nod to the youth who took that as a clear sign to retreat while everything, especially their wits, were still intact.

It was one message made up from the four slips of paper written on with the same green ink that had added such interesting additions to the first journal. It took him a second to rearrange them in the correct order but when he did they read out:

**“Caleb said this should work but you can’t reply probably but we just wanted to let you know we got home okay and thank you-**

**Shit wait I’ll send another, thank you for being such a nice police officer person. We’re really really sorry if we caused too much trouble-**

**-But nobody got like permanently hurt so it’s okay. I left some more eyebrows in my cell if Mr.Dorfel needs them. Oh and Caleb says-**

**-Shit fuck Caleb says thank you very much for making promises. How many words do I have left? Oh that's so many! Say hi to-”**

Vimes stared at the message. Did it answer anything? Not really. Did he feel a bit better about things? Yes, a very small bit. Most people he arrested didn’t write to let him know they made it home safe

Vetinari cleared his throat. 

“As I was saying,” the man never really got interrupted, Vimes thought, maybe it would be good for him. Although judging by the the look on his face it might be bad for that postal worker. “The Arch Chancellor and I were wondering if you’d be so kind as to empty your pockets.”

The part of Vimes’ brian that had solidified as a boy frantically ran through the contents of his pockets for something that would inform his mum that he had been up to no good.The rest of Vimes’ brain that was comfortable an adult said:

“I suppose, but would you and the Arch Chancellor mind telling me what this is all about?” And why it was so important that this had to happen in his office. Vimes tried to match the ever calm tone that the Patrician seemed to inhabit so effortlessly. He resisted the urge to straighten his uniform. Didn’t the man have days where he felt a bit off balance or days where he didn’t feel on balance at all.

“Just a bit of a test!” said the Arch Chancellor as he set about setting up a something. It would have looked like an impressive something if it hadn't been dwarfed by the Arch Chancellor’s massive hands but it did at least look complicated. It was almost like an iconograph but an iconograph that had gotten a bit lost on its way to being created and had had to improvise. “Confirming a bit of a hypothesis I’ve had the last couple days. It of course would have been a lot easier about five minutes ago but that bird has flown the coop. We saw in on the instruments on the way over. There! Is that everything?”

The wizard slid one final piece into place and grinned at Vimes. 

Vimes had the urge to say no just to be petty, anything that made a wizard excited made him the exact opposite. He settled for putting the four slips of paper on the pile on the basis that they would have ended up in his pockets anyway. 

He gave a nod to Ridcully, all three of them leaned forward a small enough amount that they’d all deny it if anyone pointed it out. 

The not an iconograph gave a whirr, and a click, and finally a puff of blackish smoke that brought a small rectangle of thick looking paper along with it. They all leaned in a little closer to get a better look.

“Ah ha!” shouted the Arch Chancellor, as he pointed at the pile. “I was entirely correct! It will be that bit there.” He pointed at the pile and then squinted again at the picture. “And the ink on the paper I think. Although that might just be some residual energy from that unfortunate sorting engine.”

Vetinari reached into the pile and picked up the little piece of iron that Vimes himself had picked up yesterday in the alleyway.

“Tell me Vimes, do you happen to know why you had a piece of another universe in your pocket?”

Vimes stared at it and then looked up into Vetinari’s face. 

No. No he did not

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jester only had enough spells to send a message to Fjord, Nott, Beau, and Yasha. They were expecting to have to wait another day for Caduceus but he correctly assumed that one of the Nein would get into enough trouble and get arrested and headed for law enforcement after the library didn’t work out.
> 
> And the real Nobby Nobbs is fine. He came into work more than a little hungover, saw that he was already there and went home.
> 
> Jester absolutely added any of the Watch she talked to to her 'people to talk to if I've still got spells for Sending left'

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this on election night because the world is very very stressful and I wanted to write something fun. It was supposed to be a oneshot :/
> 
> Title is from me staring at the list of Discworld books and trying and failing to find a theme, getting frustrated, and then just going with this.


End file.
